[TUHS] Ancient unixes

[TUHS] Ancient unixes

[Brantley Coile]

oops.  sorry.  it is 

	http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/spe.html
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[TUHS] Ancient unixes

[Gregg C Levine]

Hello from Gregg C Levine
Are you sure now?
I also get a 404 error message on the enclosed location.
---
Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net
---
"Remember the Force will be with you. Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org
[mailto:tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] On
> Behalf Of Brantley Coile
> Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2005 11:03 AM
> To: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Ancient unixes
> 
> oops.  sorry.  it is
> 
> 	http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/spe.html

[TUHS] Ancient unixes

[Brantley Coile]

Okay, for the third time. (maybe the charm?)

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/spe.pdf
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/ipcpaper.html

sorry for not checking the links before i posted the note.
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[TUHS] Bringing up any 4.3BSD on a MicroVAX without tape....

[robertdkeys]

Hello to the list, from a lurker, supposedly retired, but....
having run across one last MVIII crate for a lowly buck,
in surplus..... you know the rest.   It just has to run some
form of ancient BSD again.....(:+}}.....

Anyway, it is sans tape, and all my TK50 cartridges have
decomposed to dusty oxide, so it will have be resurrected
from something other than tape.

As luck has it, it has a scsi controller, and I happened to
have a scsi floppy from a decishbox long since gone to
the great bit crusher in the sky.  So, with some prodding
it booted off a NetBSD 1.4.1 vax floppy and was made
to run NetBSD 1.4.3 as a starter, to get the rest of the
early BSD bits onto the machine.  After making fsck trip
all over itself, and pushing some Tahoe and Reno bits
onto it, it now RUNS Tahoe (q0c variety) or Reno (archive
variety) quite happily.

The problem is that it won't install boot blocks that work.
None of the raboot/rdboot/bootra/bootrd combos get
any farther than the cryptic "loading boot" message.
The machine locks up hard then.  Yet, I can boot and run
things fine off a NetBSD 1.1A VAX tk50 boot file ("stand")
dd'd to that lonely scsi floppy off the far end of the bus,
with the usual b/3 duaX.... followed by "ra0a" as the root
and ^D to multiuser baby.  Years ago, the first time around,
I had this working fine, but, when I backed up the then
running system, I forgot (like a dummy) to dd off a set of
working boot blocks or a working bootable root.  Ahh, stupid
me.....(:+}}.....

The nearest that I can tell is that it is not writing (using the
disklabel executable) a correct set of block addresses to
find the real /boot and kernel.  Once, however done, the
kernel is actually loaded, it runs fine (like off NetBSD tape
boot "stand").

Any of you old timers got any thoughts as to where my suite
is going afoul of the real way?  It is probably something quite
simple, but, my greymatters just can't seem to get it figured
out.  Any insights are appreciated.

Thanks!

Bob Keys
Olde Pfarte with too many VAXentoyz.....(:+}}.....

[TUHS] Ancient Unixes

[Warner Losh]

From: "Bill Cunningham" <billcu1@verizon.net>
Subject: [TUHS] Ancient Unixes
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:28:08 -0400

>     I am copying all I can from the unix archive and will burn it to cd
> because I know how precious they are. But what I was thinking was v5,6,7 for
> example. Take them and add USB support. Linux would be a good example from
> which to draw from. Because it's Posix. Much more could be adde to /dev.

Linux is very unlike early v[567] kernels.  Those kernels are not
posix by any stretch of the imagination.  In addition, Posix is a
userland interface, not an internal kernel structure, so even if they
were posix, I'm not sure how much it  would help you.  Porting Linux's
usb stack to FreeBSD, say, would be really hard because Linux and
FreeBSD have such different intenral kernel APIs.

You'll also run into the size issue if you want to implement a generic
stack.  For example, FreeBSD's usb stack is 100kB.  While one could
slim that down a lot (it include multiple drivers and such), it would
be difficult to fit in the space contraints of the PDP-11  It should
be possible, but one's first naive attemept to implement things may
not be so straight forward.

Warner

[TUHS] Ancient Unixes

[Norman Wilson]

Bill Cunningham:

    I am copying all I can from the unix archive and will burn it to cd
  because I know how precious they are. But what I was thinking was v5,6,7 for
  example. Take them and add USB support. Linux would be a good example from
  which to draw from. Because it's Posix. Much more could be adde to /dev.

=======

Has anyone ever made a UNIBUS or Qbus USB card?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] Ancient Unixes

[Bill Cunningham]

    I am copying all I can from the unix archive and will burn it to cd
because I know how precious they are. But what I was thinking was v5,6,7 for
example. Take them and add USB support. Linux would be a good example from
which to draw from. Because it's Posix. Much more could be adde to /dev.

Bill

[TUHS] Ancient unixes

[Brantley Coile]

this name `internet' name space was considered and rejected.  it's
harder than one would think to get details right for all networks, the
addess is only a small part of the information needed for the
connection, and keeping a name space for all the internet updated
would be very hard.  instead they use a network!machine!port syntax
with the dial command.

you can follow the full development of those ideas in the following papers.


http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/who/dmr/spe.html
http://cm.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/net/net.html

remember.  seventh edition was relase in 1977.
Jimmy Carter was president, ``Anne Hall'' won best
picture, and the Chevy Nova was a big hit.

[TUHS] Ancient unixes

[Jose R Valverde]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3766 bytes --]

Waddayamean?

I mean: what does it mean to you 'the spirit of
ancient 
Unix'?

If by that you mean the fact that they were simple, 
slim and efficient, doing one simple thing and doing 
it right, you may then consider the effort by 
ast in the 80's with MINIX. OK, it used it's own 
microkernel, but the basic idea is the same... and has

been followed on by Mach, BSD-lites, Flex, MacOS X,
Tru64, Linux on L4, etc...

As a matter of fact I always felt UNIX after v7 got it

wrong: e.g. network data is no longer another stream 
(I'd have loved it to be a file system with
directories 
representing network addresses and ports being files
or 
pipes). Thus, later unices increased complexity by 
abandoning the simlicity of the original design. If 
that is the case, Plan 9 is a good update. And so is 
Inferno.

Actually, I always felt that many additions to UNIX 
might have been better implemented outside the kernel 
if only the kernel had been expanded to allow
user-mode 
expansions. But that's already here with kernel
modules 
in Linux, BSDs, Solaris, etc... which are becoming
more 
and more microkernelized each day. As microkernels 
become bigger :-)

OTOH, if you mean adding 'modern' services, perhaps
QNX 
is doing it with its support for Real-time. Or adding 
dynamic libraries, networking, modern virtual memory 
(beyond swapping), etc... which at the plainest level 
is what more or less likeably all modern UNIX have 
done.

Extending into the future? Distributed computing, 
clusters, etc? Like some commercial UNIX, Amoeba, 
Inferno and the like?

If you only mean resurrecting these ancient UNIX on 
modern hardware, there have been initiatives to
rewrite 
v7 alike systems for other architectures (say OMU,
UZI, 
MINIX, Coherent, Xinu, etc.). But for that you already

have emulators that provide you the original flavor at

even higher speeds in a virtualized environment.

So? waddayamean?

I think the answer to your question is YES! Lots of 
people have tried to improve ancient UNIX more or less

successfully, and many people is still trying, using 
microkernels, no-kernels, adding RT, VM, dynamic 
libraries, kernel modules, etc... Each with their own 
approach.

This said, if I were to pick an initiative that gets 
closest to the wishes of the original designers, that 
should undoubtedly be Plan 9 and its successor, 
Inferno, as they are what the 'Original Designers' 
themselves have done when they tried to repeat it
doing 
it 'right' (or at least better) no matter what my 
personal opinions regarding the issue may be.

Regarding my opinion, yes, I would go for the good old

leather-bound days of IBM mainframes with MVS. (zOS?) 
which oddly enough are finally reaching the rest of us

with Xen and emulators like QEMU. If I were to wish, 
I'd like a no-kernel approach (everything independent,

cooperating, hot-substitutable, fully migratable 
processes) over a virtualizing system that allows me
to 
run several OSs and update/change any OS component on 
the fly without service interruption, and to migrate 
everything between machines on demand ('cos of
overload 
or hw failures or whatever, or just 'cos I wish to). 
Now, _that_ would IMHO be close to ultimate OS design:

something that can always be updated on the fly and
may 
survive any change, something that can adapt and
evolve 
without interruption or even the user noticing. But 
that is a complex enough concept to expect most system

programmers to grasp, let alone sysadmins, programmers

or users not to pervert. Not to talk of salesmen and 
marketroids!

                           j
--
Jose R. Valverde
EMBnet/CNB



		
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[TUHS] ancient unixes

[Norman Wilson]

Bill Cunningham:

      Has anyone had the idea to take the ancient unix, at least in spirit
  into the modern age?

Warren Toomey:

  Plan 9?

=======

Plan 9 is to UNIX as SVr4.2.2.2.2.2.2 is to Sixth Edition.

If that's the spirit of the modern age, give me the good
old leather-bound days, without all that modern rhythm-
type dancing and hooting and waving.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

PS: This message is not intended to supply the minimum
daily requirement of serious thought.  Consult your doctor
or pharmacist, but not the one that just sent you electronic
junk mail or promises to make explicit drugs fast.

[TUHS] ancient unixes

[Warren Toomey]

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 06:06:53PM -0400, Bill Cunningham wrote:
>     Has anyone had the idea to take the ancient unix, at least in spirit
> into the modern age?

Plan 9?
	Warren

[TUHS] ancient unixes

[Bill Cunningham]

    Has anyone had the idea to take the ancient unix, at least in spirit
into the modern age?

Bill